“Widescreen” Filter w/”Offset” Creates Blurred Video

[David Roth weiss]

Rick,

Okay, so the very simple solution didn’t work for that one shot. As you probably know, there are several other ways to letterbox a shot. I’d say go fix that shot and thank Apple for creating the widescreen filter that made letterboxing every other shot so darned easy.

Just think, in the time you took to write your post you could have made many creative decisions that could have netted you many pats on the back from your clients. And, in the time I spent writing this response I could have gotten five more minutes of TV in…

All the best,
DRW

[Andy Mees]

try nudging your video down one more pixel in the offset field … sometimes the bad render can be a field/interlace issue
to get finer control hold down the cmd key when you drag the slider, or hold down the shift key for two digit precision

cheers
Andy

[Lars Wikstrom]

I make my own letter box by creating a black solid and then applying a 4 point garbage matte. after I get the points all set you then select the invert button bellow that filter.

If you are working in DV (lower feild) always make sure that you make you ‘Y’ axis an even number. the ‘X’ can be anything but sliding up and down make sure it is even. An example would be that your ‘Y’ axis might be 135.23, in this case round it up 136. I don’t think Apple should let you set sub pixel level where you can split feilds.

Try odd and even numbers and you will see it be sharp and fuzzy, this also applys to text.

-Lars

[Stevesherrick]

Yes, that is most likely it. I have experienced this before and was told about making sure it lands on an even number. Seemed to work most of the time, but not always. Maybe there was something else going on too. I have found that Graemme Nattresse’s widescreen mask doesn’t have this problem for some reason. He may be able to chime in here and clarify what his plugin is doing that seems to be better than Apple’s.

steve

[Rick Macadamia]

Thank you so much for responding with your helpful suggestions. It’s great to have a forum where other professionals remember what it’s like to be climbing the learning curve of new equipment and take the time to pass on some of their knowledge without bending to the temptation to be judgemental, to make unfounded assumptions or to crack wise at another’s expense.

I’ve been in this stimulating business for over 35 years and have traveled the road from the Zoomar lens, past the SqueezeZoom and the self-orienting eyepiece and on into the world of HD. Thousands of pages of manuals, hundreds of conversations with Engineers and Production personnel, ever-changing specs and capabilities and, almost without exception, the people I’ve encountered along the way have been willing and eager to lend a hand in the spirit of just being nice.

This international world of electronic forums has given me undreamed of opportunities to converse with so many talented people and more than a few seem to visit here at the COW. Thank you for your help. I’m out of town and away from my edit system but I’ll put your suggestions into action as soon as I return.

[John Calhoun]

I use widescreen alot for our shows, but I don’t use the FCP filter. It’s a hassle when you have a lot of cuts. I’ve created a 16×9 graphic in Photoshop with an alpha channel. I can then lay the graphic over all of my video layers and if any clips need adjusting I just move them around.

pxlmvr

p.s. DRW please try not to be so critical and condesending. This forum was created to find answers to questions.